Recovering the Relational Starting Point of Compassion Training: A Foundation for Sustainable and Inclusive Care

The cultivation of compassion through meditation training is of increasing interest to scientists, health-care providers, educators, and policymakers as an approach to help address challenging personal and social issues. Yet people encounter critical inner psychological barriers to compassion that l...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Perspectives on psychological science 2020-11, Vol.15 (6), p.1346-1362
Main Authors: Condon, Paul, Makransky, John
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Barriers
Compassion
Cultivation
Developmental psychology
Health psychology
Impressions
Medical personnel
Meditation
Policy making
Social issues
Suffering
Sustainability
Sympathy
Traditions
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Summary:The cultivation of compassion through meditation training is of increasing interest to scientists, health-care providers, educators, and policymakers as an approach to help address challenging personal and social issues. Yet people encounter critical inner psychological barriers to compassion that limit the effectiveness of compassion training—including the lack of a secure base, aversion to suffering, feeling alone in suffering, and reductive impressions of others. These barriers emerge, in part, from a lack of relational support and are exacerbated by modernist conceptions that present meditation as an autonomous, self-help practice. This article proposes a solution centered on relationality that is derived from the integration of diverse areas of psychology with contemplative traditions. Theories and findings from social, developmental, and health psychology can inform meditation programs and help recover important relational elements of compassion training from traditional cultures that address common barriers to compassion and thus promote more sustainable and inclusive care. In so doing, this article illustrates the value of psychological theories for translating important contextual elements from contemplative traditions into diverse modern settings.
ISSN:1745-6916
1745-6924
DOI:10.1177/1745691620922200